How to setup Postfix relay with authentication in CentOS 7

To configure postfix to relay mail using another MTA, you may do the following steps:

postconf -e 'relayhost ='
postconf -e 'smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes'
postconf -e 'smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd'
postconf -e 'smtp_sasl_security_options='

Replace with the original MTA hostname that you going to use for relaying. Now, create the sasl_passwd file in /etc/postfix with the following inside: smtp_username:smtp_password

Now, use postmap to generate postfix hash db:

postmap /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd

You can verify if it’s working with the following:

postmap -q /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd

This will return the username and password for your smtp relay host.

Now all you need to do is to restart the postfix

service postfix restart

Troubleshoot: -bash: fuser: command not found

If you are trying to use a command, fuser, that is used to identify process using lock file or socket file, and having the following error:

-bash: fuser: command not found

that means, your system doesn’t have the psmisc package installed. Usually, killall, fuser type of commands are under this package. CentOS 7 sometimes, do not install the package by default. To install it, run the following:

yum install psmisc -y

Once done, you should be able to use fuser command.

How To: Use SSH Password in a Script

You can obviously use RSA public/private keypair to access servers without password, although, sometimes, it may be desirable to use ssh password on a command line and run a remote command on another server. This can be done using a tool called ‘sshpass’. You can create a simple bash script using sshpass, that can help you monitor and control multiple servers from a single location.

How to use ssh password in script

First install sshpass:

# yum install sshpass -y

Once done, you can use sshpass command as following:

# sshpass -p "SSH_Password" ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no SSH_Username@remote-ssh-server "yourcommand"

Just replace, the password, username, remote-ssh-server and your command with your desired setup, and viola!

Note: If yum says, the following:

No package sshpass* available.

then you would need to install epel repository to install sshpass. To install epel, run the following:

# yum install epel* -y

Programming: How to Check If A File Exists or Not in Bash Script

How to Check If A File Exists or Not in Bash Script

You can use if condition in bash script to do that. If conditions takes ‘-f’ to test if a file exists or not. Syntax would be the following:

$FILE = $1
if [ -f $FILE ]; then
echo "File Exists"
echo "File Do Not Exist"

Now, if your script only demands to check if the file do not exist, you can use a unary operator for negate the boolean value as following:

$FILE = $1
if[ ! -f $FILE ]; then
echo "File Do Not Exist"


How To: Restrict a Folder to Your IP Only

Sometimes, for development purposes, you may want to restrict access to the folder, only to your IP, and deny others from accessing that folder. One way to do that is to use htaccess rules. A common rule, could be denying all the users and allowing your IP. To find out, your IP, you may visit the following:

Note the IP it has reported. Open the folder that you want to protect. Find the .htaccess file under the folder (If no file available, create one) and add the following:

order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from <your IP goes here>

Replace the <your IP goes here> from the snippets with the IP you have noted from Now, your folder should be accessible only from your IP.

How To: Start a Screen Session and Run a Command at a Time

Sometimes, you may want to run a screen command in a remote server. That makes it necessary to run the command inside the screen session while starting it.

How to start a screen session and run a command in one line

# screen -d -m sh -c "yourcommand"

From the man page of Screen:

-d -m : Start screen in “detached” mode. This creates a new session but doesn’t attach to it. This is useful for system startup scripts.

sh -c: Starts a shell and runs a command for you.


How To: Install AutoSSL for Server Hostname – Cpanel Server

Starting from Cpanel 11.58, Cpanel is offering Free SSL, issued by ‘Cpanel INC’ for free of charge to the valid cpanel license owner. If you are using cpanel, login to your WHM >> Providers >> Enable Cpanel & from Options >> Check Allow AutoSSL to replace invalid or expiring non-AutoSSL certificates.

Now, running upcp should automatically install the free SSL for your cpanel server hostname. If it doesn’t, it is probably because your server IP and the hostname IP are resolving to wrong address. To understand and troubleshoot the problem, run the following script from command line:

# /usr/local/cpanel/bin/checkallsslcerts

This script checks and installs certificate for expired, invalid and self signed certificates for the server services. If you are seeing an error like the following:

[WARN] The system failed to acquire a signed certificate from the cPanel Store because of the following error: (XID 62hp6x) The system queried for a temporary file at “”, but the web server responded with the following error: 404 (Not Found). A DNS (Domain Name System) or web server misconfiguration may exist.

It means, your hostname is resolving to the wrong IP. You would need to check if the hostname is resolving to an IP which has first virtualhost pointed to /var/www/html or not under /etc/apache2/conf/httpd.conf


Troubleshoot: You must upgrade to Litespeed “5.2.1 build 2 or later”, in order to upgrade to the next version of cPanel & WHM.

Error Message



The error appears because Litespeed below 5.2.1 doesn’t have SSL compatibility with Cpanel 11.68. Although, this goes further, if you uninstall the plugin, and upcp will still fail to update the Cpanel/WHM. A workaround for this, is to install and uninstall the plugin through Litespeed auto installer. Here is how to do that:

Download Litespeed Auto Installer for Cpanel

# wget
# chmod a+x

Install Litespeed for Cpanel/WHM using Auto Installer

# ./ TRIAL 1 8080 username testpass1234 1 0

Uninstall Litespeed

# /usr/local/lsws/admin/misc/

Uninstall Litespeed WHM Plugin


Run upcp:

# /scripts/upcp --force

Quick Tip: How to Check Total Number of Mails in Postfix Queue

Exim provides a quick way to check the total number of mails in the queue. This is done using the exim -bpc Although, this is not the same for postfix. Postfix doesn’t come with an easy way to do that.

How to Check Total Number of Mails in Postfix Queue

A quick tip on what I use to check the postfix queue number is the following command:

# mailq | tail -n 1
-- 6899 Kbytes in 1518 Requests.

Basically, postfix returns the queue statistics at the end of the queue listing command. We are simply tailing that to find the number.


How To: Clear Postfix and Exim Queue

How to clear postfix queue

Postfix queue can be cleared using the postsuper command. The syntax is as following:

# postsuper -d ALL

It will clear all the postfix queue. You can specifically clear the deferred emails for example from the postfix queue as following:

# postsuper -d ALL deferred

If you have a large quantity in postfix queue, there is actually a quicker and easier way to do that. You can simply remove all the folders under /var/spool/postfix and it will clear the queue.

# rm -Rf /var/spool/postfix/*
# mailq | tail -n 1
Mail queue is empty

Note: The folders inside postfix would get created automatically once the queue starts filling up, nothing to worry about.

How to clear Exim Queue

Exim queue can be checked using the following:

# exim -bp

To check the number of mails in queue, you can use:

# exim -bpc

To remove a message from exim queue, you need to use the following:

# exim -Mrm {message-id}

There is no build in command to clear all the mails from exim queue. You can use a pipe command to clear the exim queue as following:

# exim -bp | exiqgrep -i | xargs exim -Mrm

Although, there are even quicker and easier way to clear the exim queue, specially if you have a lot of emails in queue and the server is pretty loaded.

# rm -Rf /var/spool/exim/input

Removing the input directory should clear the exim queue. Note: The directory would automatically create once the exim starts it’s queue again, no need to worry.